German mathematician and physicist
Theodor Franz Eduard Kaluza
(
German:
[ka?luːt?sa]
; 9 November 1885 – 19 January 1954) was a German
mathematician
and
physicist
known for the
Kaluza?Klein theory
, involving
field equations
in five-dimensional space-time. His idea that fundamental forces can be unified by introducing additional dimensions were reused much later for
string theory
.
Life
[
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]
Kaluza was born to a
Roman Catholic
family from the town of
Ratibor
(present-day Raciborz in Poland) in the
German Empire
's
Prussian
Province of Silesia
. Kaluza himself was born in Wilhelmsthal (a village that was incorporated into Oppeln (presently
Opole
) in 1899). He spent his youth in
Konigsberg
, where his father,
Maximilian "Max" Kaluza
, was a professor of the English language. He entered the
University of Konigsberg
to study mathematics and gained his doctorate with a thesis on
Tschirnhaus transformations
. Kaluza was primarily a mathematician but began studying
relativity
. In April 1919 Kaluza noticed that when he solved
Albert Einstein
's equations for
general relativity
using five dimensions, then
Maxwellian
equations for
electromagnetism
resulted spontaneously.
[1]
[2]
[3]
Kaluza wrote to Einstein who, in turn, encouraged him to publish. Kaluza's theory was published in 1921 in a paper "Zum Unitatsproblem der Physik" with Einstein's support in
Sitzungsberichte Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften
966?972 (1921).
[2]
Kaluza's insight is remembered as the
Kaluza?Klein theory
(named also after physicist
Oskar Klein
). However, the work was neglected for many years, as attention was directed towards
quantum mechanics
. His idea that fundamental forces can be explained by additional dimensions was not reused until
string theory
was developed. It is, however, also notable that many of the aspects of this body of work were already published in 1914 by
Gunnar Nordstrom
, but his work also went unnoticed and was not recognized when the ideas were reused.
For the rest of his career Kaluza continued to produce ideas about relativity and about models of the
atomic nucleus
. Despite Einstein's encouragement, Kaluza remained only a (
Privatdozent
) at
Konigsberg
until 1929, when he was appointed as professor at the
University of Kiel
. In 1935, he became a full professor at the
University of Gottingen
, where he remained until his death in 1954. Perhaps his finest mathematical work is the textbook
Hohere Mathematik fur die Praktiker
, which was written jointly with
Georg Joos
.
Personal life
[
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]
Kaluza was extraordinarily versatile. He spoke or wrote 17 languages. He also had an unusually modest personality. He refused the
Nazi ideology
, and his appointment to the Gottingen professorship was possible only with difficulties and by assistance of his colleague
Helmut Hasse
. Strange stories were told of his private life, for example, that he taught himself to swim during his thirties by reading a book about it and succeeded at his first attempt in the water.
Kaluza had a son (1910-1994), also named
Theodor Kaluza
[
de
]
, who was a notable
mathematician
.
See also
[
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]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Daniela Wuensch.
Kaluza?Klein Theory
. Compendium of Quantum Physics 2009, pp. 328?331.
- ^
a
b
Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
(1918)
(
Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
(1918)). archive.org. pp. 966?974.
- ^
Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
(1918). p. 969. (cf., da num (fur alle drei arten feldgleichungen) [...
Ricci tensor
...], so fur den die maxwellschen gleichen gem fur die komponenten des verstorms [...] der raumzeitliche energietensor is also im wesentlichen mir stromdichte zu randern (Tr., Since then (for all three types of field equations) [...
Ricci-flat manifold
...], So for the same according to Maxwell's for the components of the verstorms [...] the spatio-temporal energy tensor thus essentially current density are random)).
References
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]
External links
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